Are you a Gryffindor or not?
by jmacsa
Summary: Hindsite is 20/20, can the past mistakes of one help the present ( and future) of another. What would happen if Snape decided he did not want to watch history repeat itself? Starts Ron/Lavender hints at Severus/Lilly. Snape mentor, not slash.


"Mr. Weasley, please stay a moment." Commanded the most dreaded professor in Hogwarts. Ron stifled a shudder, trying to figure out what he had done wrong that Professor Snape wanted to see him. "Alone Mr Potter." His best mate looked at him, looking for conformation he would be alright . After a nod Harry walked out and closed the classroom door.

The professor just stayed where he was arms crossed, with a look of disgust. If looks could kill Ron would have be dead a hundred times over. He shifted in discomfort under that gaze. He knew better than to say anything, it would just make the situation worse. Finally it looked like the stoic faced professor had made some sort of decision. "Follow me, touch nothing." Professor Snape lead Ron though the Defence classroom to the office attached to the back. Once there he locked and silenced the door. "Sit!" Indicating a straight back chair in the middle of the room. Ron bit back a retort about not being a dog and did as ordered. Snape then proceded to stalk around the room, still throwing death glares his way. Finally he stoped in front of Ron, arms crossed again.

"Have you taken complete leave of your senses!?"

Shocked and confused did not even begin to describe what Ron was feeling.

"Contrary to what I have said in the past, I did believe you possessed a fair amount of intelligence , grossly under utilized to be sure, but I believed it was there. Now I am starting to doubt my own intelligence for that belief."

More shock, did Snape just complement and insult him in the same breath? At this point it was all he could do not to gape like a fish.

Finally finding his voice"Sir?"

"You honestly do not see what you are doing?"

"I do lots of stuff, I honestly have no idea what you are talking about….Sir." Ron searched his memory and truly had no idea what the professor was going on about.

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, he was going to need a calming drought and a maximum strength headache potion when he was done with this clueless ….. child. With a sigh he decided to dive in. "You have been part of the Troublesome Trio since your first year, very rarely have the three of you spent much time apart. However in the past several months no one has seen you and Miss Granger together outside of class. You and Mr Potter, Mr Potter and Miss Granger but never you and Miss Granger. It is obvious to anyone with eyes and half a brain cell there has been a fracture."

" With all due respect sir I do not see how this is any of your concern" Ron forced out as unemotionally as possible.

"It is my concern because I am making it my concern. All of the staff see what is going on but no one wants to get involved. Your grades are dropping, your head of house has not informed your parents yet but is planning on it in the near future. How well will your mother take it when she finds out that you have been visiting empty classrooms with Miss Brown when you should be studying or doing your homework?" The professor tamped down a wave of satisfaction as the student paled at the thought of his mother finding out what he had been up to. _Good_ , Snape thought _maybe there is hope for_ _him after all_. " Not to mention if your grades fall much further you will be yanked from your house team."

Snape let that sink in for a bit. "Sir? Why are you telling me this?"

"I assume you mean other than the fact that you need to know?" Ron nodded. " Because I see you at a crossroad and I want to keep you from making the wrong choice, like I did." The last bit was barely a whisper but Ron heard. He looked at the older man, and he did look older at that moment, he was holding a book, a sad look on his face. The book was snapped shut. " I am not naïve enough to think that Potter did not tell you about his trip into my pevensie ."

" Not the details sir."Ron didn't know why he felt the need to try and offer the most hated professor in the school some comfort. The truth was he overheard Sirius telling the twins about it after Harry let into him about being a bully. He was looking for a sympathetic ear from fellow pranksters, he didn't get it. Even the self proclaimed "Greatest Pranksters of the Generation" knew what was done was cruel. In the end he was left moping in the library at Grimmauld Place, complaining they were just like Moony.

Snape took one more look at the cover of the book in his hand, then stepped forward and held it out to Ron. With an even more confused look he took it from the professor, it was a dark green leather bound book with a silver cauldron and spirals swirling up from it. He looked to his professor wondering how a potions book related to this conversation.

"Open it."

When he did he saw it was a scrap book. On the first page was a muggle picture of a dark haired boy and a red haired girl with a garden in the background. They had their arms around each other and were smiling at the camera. The caption underneath the picture said "Sev Lilly, May 1969". Ron looked more closely and realized the girl had green eyes, Harry's eyes, this was his mother. This wasn't a forced picture, this was 2 best friends having fun. He glanced at the professor, he was being watched. The next page had the same children but in Hogwarts robes in front of the express, this caption was "Off to Hogwarts, First September, 1971" this one had the front of the envelope from a Hogwarts acceptance letter mounted beneath it. Ron went through the pages, he saw the children get older, muggle pictures gave way to wizarding ones, saw the looks the young Snape gave Lilly when she wasn't looking. Then the pictures stoped.

Ron looked a the professor, " Right after OWLS my 5th year, I made the worst mistake of my life." Snape was now leaning heavily on his desk. " The mistake that was a catalyst for all of my other bad choices. I pushed away my best friend, my only true friend. My biggest supporter, all because of some bullies. I chose power over Lilly, I never wanted to be powerless again."

"You loved her" It wasn't a question, Ron could see it in Snape's face, then and now.

"I did, and I do."

"Did she know?"

"I never told her, I was too afraid of ruining what we had in the pursuit of something more." The pure emotion on the stoic professors face was enough for Ron to know what he said was the truth. " I also did not feel I was good enough for her. She was brilliant, beautiful, powerful. In the end it was my insecurities that made me push her away."

 _Oh my god!_ Ron thought, _Of all the people in the_ _world to understand, truly understand_.

" I know you are in the same position now that I was then, you need to decide what you truly want, who you truly want. You also need to decide who you truly want to be."

Ron looked down at the book in his hands. " I want to be more than " Harry Potter's sidekick", more than one of the "Weasley boys", the one that was born right before they got the girl they wanted…I want a home with a huge library and a bunch of red headed, quidditch loving book worms running around." He had a small smile on his face now.

Snape was fighting a smile of his own." I seriously doubt you will get book worms from Miss Brown." Now the professor was back to his stoic self. " You are not "Harry Potter's sidekick" you are his right hand, his best mate, his brother. You beat Professor McGonagall's giant chess set in first year, you are the wizard chess champion of Hogwarts. Your sister had 4 brothers in school at the time , but it was you, the youngest,who went into the Chamber of Secrets to rescue her, at 13. At 14 years old you stood between your best friends and who you thought was a crazed killer, on a broken leg no less. None of your brothers can say that."

" She doesn't think of me like that, I'm just one of her friends."

" The rift you are experiencing with her would not have occurred if that was true, she would not be so hurt if that was true."

"How do you know?" There was no defiance in the young mans face, he truly wanted to know.

The professor took something else off his desk and handed it to Ron. " Because I have eyes." Ron looked at what he was handed. It was a picture, of him with the team after practice. He didn't understand until he looked past the team, there was Hermione watching him, with a look of pure pride. Like he was the most amazing thing in the world. But there was something else in that look too, the same thing he saw in his own face in pictures of him looking at her. The same thing he saw when his parents looked at each other, when Snape looked at Lilly.

He then saw Lavender in the same picture, she was looking at him with complete adoration, worship even, honestly it was very creepy.

"So I ask you, what are you going to do? Are you a Gryffindor or not?"

It all clicked, a devious grin lit up his face , one worthy of the Twin Terrors "Oh I'm a Gryffindor alright, but I think I need some Slytherin cunning to get what I want." The older man grinned as he conjured another chair, with that the two strategists began to plan.

 _Obviously I am not J K R, I am just playing in her world._

 _A/N This is my first attempt at writing fan fiction, I love to read and I was inspired by an out take of Midnight Confessions . Let me know what you think, there might be a second chapter if I can work out a few things._


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